Where Are We? Performative Strategies of Encounter

Abstract

This chapter is a visual, aural, and written iteration of the performative walk “Where are we? Performing the city, slowing down time” developed and presented by the artists Beatriz Cantinho and Susana Mendes Silva in the context of the “Elia Academy 2023: exploring situatedness” that took place in the University of Évora in May. The aesthetic focus of this performative walk was a reflection on how one can create connections with the place where one is, and how one can look and unveil lost, forgotten, or erased stories of a given territory. The territory was the city of Évora, where Cantinho and Mendes Silva wanted participants to experience its history, landscape and soundscape, and their own bodies, their own presence from a situated perspective. The authors also wanted to trigger a conscious experience that contrasted with the touristic way of experiencing this World Heritage city and its water systems.